


Topped With a Bow

by IShipThem



Category: Sister Claire (Webcomic)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:42:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7343356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IShipThem/pseuds/IShipThem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marianne's friends help her pick out sexy lingerie for Joséphine's birthday; </p><p>AKA meet Marianne's best friends and roommates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Topped With a Bow

Friday morning at breakfast, the rare occasion Marianne actually comes home instead of staying over at Joséphine’s, she drapes herself on top of Annaïs, ready to drop dead after a long late shift. “This night just  _ wouldn’t end,”  _ she complains, smushing her face to Annaïs’ shoulder. An impressive feat, considering Annaïs is considerably shorter than Marianne is. “Please tell me you girls saved me some food.”

“Oh, are you talking to us?” Beth says, feigning surprise by blinking profusely. “Annaïs! I think she’s  _ talking to us! _ I’m just  _ shocked _ — walking in other people’s homes and demanding to know if they saved her  _ breakfast, _ the outrageous  _ cheek _ of her—”

Marianne kicks her under the table. “I still  _ live _ here!” she says, sticking out her tongue at Beth. 

“Could’ve fooled me,” Beth says, giving Marianne a salacious look. “Hard to sleep alone after warming the Captain’s bed, isn’t it, Annie?”

_ “Yes,” _ Marianne says, sticking out her tongue again. “Yes, it is.” Yawning, she accepts the mug of hot chocolate Jeanne is offering her. “You’re a goddess among women,” she moans, and Jeanne laughs, ruffling her hair as she goes around them to get to her seat. It is a tight fit all around. 

“Are you girls doing anything tomorrow?” she asks, pulling the newspaper to her on the table. “No one’s in shift this weekend, right? Maybe we could go out.”

“Hm! Actually,” Marianne says, hurriedly swallowing her drink. She has a chocolate mustache going on. “I was gonna ask if you girls wouldn’t go shopping with me. I wanted to go to that shop in the Blue Ring— that  _ Loungerie _ , in Arabesque Street? You know the one?”

“Oh, we’re going to the  _ Blue Ring?”  _ Annaïs asks, her arms clasped around Marianne’s hips. Because the majority of her pay goes to keeping her family, she doesn’t have as much spending money as the rest of them. It’s why they’ve let her off the rent the previous year. “So  _ fancy.  _ What’s the occasion?”

Marianne smiles against Annaïs’ neck, her face blooming pink, and that’s answer enough for them. Nevertheless; “Our first anniversary,” she says, and none present needs to ask who’s “us”. “So, Josie’s birthday, too. I wanted to buy something  _ nice _ to wear, you know?”

“Sexy lingerie?” Beth asks, fighting to bite through the crust of her bread. “Hah, she’s gonna drop over dead. Tell us all about it later.”

“She’s not gonna drop dead,” Jeanne says, sipping her coffee as she skims the Economy section of the newspaper. “She’s gonna eat Annie alive.”

“I’m  _ hoping _ so,” Marianne says cheerfully. “Would you all come with me? I’ll treat you to ice cream later.”

“Sexy lingerie and ice cream in the Blue District?” Annaïs says, stealing a sip from Marianne’s chocolate. “Count me  _ in. _ I love window shopping. Even if everything in that place is ridiculously overpriced.”

“You think everything that’s not sold by the dozen is ridiculously overpriced,” Beth says, and Marianne has to agree. She remembers the first time she accompanied Annaïs and her mother to the spices market: it’d been slightly traumatizing. She’d spent the entire evening thoroughly convinced she was gonna be trampled to death — and just hoping that would happen before she had to witness someone pull up a knife to settle a purchase. Annaïs’ mother was such a sweet lady. Until you tried to get money out of her.

However: “Beth, you’re the worst penny-pincher of us all,” Annaïs says, nudging the girl’s knee under the table, an insistent poke. “And you grew up  _ filthy rich!” _

Beth snorts, cutting another piece of cheese for herself. “ _ I  _ was never filthy rich.  _ My family _ was filthy rich,” she says, leaning over the table to tug the butter towards her. Annaïs passes it over. “There’s a difference. They never let me buy anything for myself.”

“But  _ are _ you going tomorrow?” Marianne says, making puppy eyes at Beth from under Annaïs’ chin.  _ “Pleaaaase,  _ Betty?”

Laughing, Beth reaches out to pat her cheeks. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll ogle your breasts in overpriced lace, I’m sure I’ll have brilliant insight to offer you.” Squeezing her captured cheeks, Beth leans back to look at the clock. “But right now, I’m getting my ass to work before I’m late. Let’s get going, Jeanne?”

“Hm, yeah!” Jeanne says, tossing back the rest of her coffee and buttoning up her uniform one handed. She drops a kiss to Marianne’s and Annaïs’ foreheads on her way out. “Tomorrow— sure, yeah! I’d love to! I’ll see you girls later.”

“If you’re still here when we come back, that is!” Beth says, and ducks out the front door just in time to miss the boot Marianne tosses at her.

 

* * *

 

The  _ Loungerie _ is as fancy a store as fancy comes, smelling of money half a block away. It’s got curtains pulled over the windows, all quite classy and discreet and elegant; no skimpy underwear displayed for everyone and their children to see. A silver bell rings over the door when they come in, promptly summoning a saleswoman from the pure ether. 

“Welcome, ladies!” she greets sweetly, and Marianne’s honestly impressed by how genuinely pleased to see them she sounds. Most of the time when salespeople approach her, she feels the need to arrest them for pickpocketing. “How may I help you today?”

“Oh, ah, hi,” Marianne says, in a brilliant showcase of verbal prowess. “I, ah— I, I wanted to get something nice. For, huh. My anniversary. For my girlfriend. I mean, that is, for  _ me _ . To wear. For my girlfriend.” She stops talking before she embarrasses herself further. 

“Well, we can certainly help you with that,” the woman says, and Marianne’s once again impressed at her skill. She almost doesn’t feel like an idiot anymore. “And these are your friends?” she adds, nodding to the girls.

“Here to ogle her boobs as good friends do,” Beth says, and Marianne hears Annaïs slapping her own forehead in some higher astral plane.

“Wonderful!” the woman says, not missing a beat. “I’m Susan, and I’ll be assisting you today. Would you like some coffee or cold water?”

“I’ll take the water,” Annaïs says, never one to refuse free anything. Susan nods pleasantly at her and ushers them in further inside the store, where they’re seated in the softest recamier Marianne’s butt’s ever had the pleasure to meet. Annaïs gets her water in a damn crystal glass. This is definitely the fancy stuff.

“Now, might I ask what kind of lingerie you’ll be looking into today, Miss…?”

“Marianne.”

“Miss Marianne,” Susan agrees, giving her a warm smile. She’s very pretty, her dark black hair pulled back in a bun, her dress a professional navy and button lips painted red. Marianne has the slight suspicion Jeanne’s considering asking her out. “What will it be, then? We have brasseries both with and without filling, and bottom pieces with or without cups.”

“Cups?” Jeanne asks, saving Marianne the embarrassment of doing just that. Susan smiles pleasantly.

“Yes, dear,” she says. “Allow me to illustrate.”

Heading for a drawer a few steps to her left, Susan returns with two bottom pieces in black lace, offering both for their inspection. The girls lean over them; though they’re the same model, their shapes are at once noticeably different, and Marianne, Jeanne and Annaïs all “oh!” in agreement, right before Beth says:

“Oh, right, in case you have a dick.”

And makes Marianne want to  _ fucking murder her. _

“Precisely,” Susan says, as if Beth hasn’t just been shamelessly rude, folding up the pieces again. “As you see, we feel it important that all of our clients have options. What will it be then, Miss Marianne?”

“Ah, hm, no filling for the brasserie. And, ah, no cups on the bottom pieces,” Marianne says, smiling up at her. “Do you need my measurements?”

“Indeed, I do, miss. Please, right this way.”

After Susan is done measuring Marianne, carefully taking down notes in a little paper pad stamped with the store’s logo, she claps her perfectly manicured hands once, as if nothing excites her more than helping a complete stranger find sexy lingerie to tempt her girlfriend. “Well, then!” she says, sunnily. “Did you have anything in mind, Miss Marianne? Would you like, as they say, to have ‘as little on as possible’, or have her unwrap you? Or would you like to see some options first?”

It takes Marianne half a second to realize Susan’s joking, and by then all of the girls are already giggling. Susan gives them all a wink. “We also have costumes, of course,” she says.

_ “Hold on,” _ Beth says, sucking in a breath of sudden, intense revelation. “You wouldn’t happen to have—” She looks over at the girls with a expression of maniac delight. “—’sexy Royal Guard’, would you?”  

“Why, yes, we  _ do  _ have it,” Susan says, amidst an explosion of girlish shrieking giggles. “Hm. Would I be correct to assume you’re yourselves part of the Guard?”

“Most correct,” Marianne agrees, still giggling like an idiot. “Hm. Could we see that one first, please?”

The sexy Guard outfit is everything they’d been hoping for. There’s stockings to make up for their boots, and the most teeny tiny of shorts standing for their breeches, and the Guard’s symbol stamped to a top that must make one’s boob look twice as big. Beth can’t look at it without breaking in crying laughter. Jeanne looks the slightest bit horrified.

“It has a sword belt,” Annaïs remarks, in a voice drier than dust. “Marianne— it has a  _ sword belt.” _

“Those shorts would fall  _ right _ off if you tried using a real sword with that belt,” Marianne says, desperately trying to suffocate her giggles.

“That wouldn’t actually defeat the purpose of the outfit,” Susan says, and Marianne fervently decides she likes her. 

“Are you getting that one?” Beth asks, still wheezing against Annaïs shoulder, and Marianne bites her lips,  _ actually _ considering it.

But: “No,” she decides at last, shaking her head. “I already look attractive in my uniform, imagine if I gave Josie  _ that _ mental image? No work would ever get done ever again.”

Marianne tilts her head then, giving the uniform another considering once-over, and Jeanne shoots her an even, knowing look. “You’re imagining her in this, aren’t you?”

_ “Y-eps,”  _ Marianne agrees, brusquely giving her back to it. “I’m screwed.”

“If everything goes according to plan,” Beth says, and Marianne slaps her back all the way to the dressing room.

They end up spending over one hour in the store, by the end of which Annaïs and Susan have found out they have three relatives, fifteen childhood friends, and a yam vendor in common. Marianne would be impressed if not for the fact the exact same thing happens to her every time she meets a Drifter. Beth gets talked into buying a bottle of lube (“Can’t be worse than Annaïs’ yam lube”; “Hey,  _ screw you,  _ it’s completely efficient and reasonably priced!”). Jeanne leaves with a new plain set of black underwear, and a date, and a lipstick mark on her cheek.

After much lip-munching, Marianne finally decides to go for something plain and white and gauzy. “White looks good on you,” Annaïs encourages her, as Marianne twists around trying to see her back on the mirror. “Besides, that one makes you look more girlish.”

“Is that what we are trying to accomplish?” Susan asks, and Marianne whips around at once to glare daggers at Beth, before she can start making innuendos about her best friend’s kinks. “Then I agree this one’s an excellent choice. Revealing without being vulgar.”

“Should I add stockings?” Marianne says, thoughtful, looking down at her bare legs. Joséphine might like to peel them out of her, but, “Won’t they look too much like our Guard uniform?”

“Oh, I’d not be caught dead selling them if that were the case,” Susan says, and comes back with the prettiest, softest lace that’s ever graced Marianne’s thighs. 

“I’m never taking these off,” Marianne whispers, running her hands down her legs reverently. Susan has the smug expression that comes with a well-executed sale for about 0.3 seconds, before she simply hums in agreement.

Coin is exchanged, purchases are packaged, and they leave the store again ready for some ice cream, all of them in an excellent mood. Marianne treats the girl as promised. They sit by a window overseeing the street, each nursing their own bowls, and Marianne swirls the straw of her milkshake, thinking, thinking.

“What’s cooking in your head, Annie?” Jeanne asks, around her own ice cream sandwich. Marianne hums distractedly.

“Planning,” she says, leaning her face in one hand. “I’m figuring out how should I, hm,  _ present _ the outfit. In some way that won’t make me feel like an idiot.”

“I mean, there’s the traditional way,” Annaïs says, in a completely serious voice. “Tell her you’ve got a surprise, tell her to wait a second, change in the bathroom, come out, have fun.”

“That’s boring,” Marianne complains, and Annaïs sticks out her tongue at her. “Who else has ideas?”

“Get a bow,” Beth says, licking melting ice cream off her wrist. “Not an actual bow. A gift bow. Tie it around your wrist or something and ask her if she wants to unwrap her present.”

“No,” her three friends say all at once, and Beth shrugs.

“Joséphine would like it,” she says, dead certain, and goes back to devouring her banana split.

“Oh, I know,” Jeanne says, raising her hand as if she’s answering a question in a classroom. “Let her think you two are just going to go to bed and sleep, and then casually walk in wearing the lingerie like absolutely nothing’s wrong.” A pause. “See how long it takes her to jump you.”

Snapping her fingers, Marianne points victoriously at Jeanne. “ _ Yes,” _ she says, grabbing the girl’s face in her hands. “ _ Jeanne. _ My friend. My wonderful,  _ brilliant _ friend.  _ Yes.  _ Ten points for you.”

“My idea was good too,” Beth grumbles under her breath. Annaïs gives her a bite of her own ice cream and a kiss on the cheek.

“Can’t believe it’s almost been an year,” she says, thoughtful, chewing on her spoon. “Feels like just yesterday you were crying every time that song you liked came up on the radio.”

As expected, Beth takes that clue to pull in a deep breath and start a dramatic rendition: “HOW CAN I NOOOOT LOOOOVE YOOOU—” 

“Ohmy _ gods _ , don’t drag  _ that  _ back to light!” Marianne groans, desperately trying to smudge her hand to Beth’s mouth. All that accomplishes is sending Beth into a laughing fit. “ _ Gods!  _ That song doesn’t make me cry anymore, all right!”

It’s a lie.

“That’s a lie,” Jeanne says, and Marianne throws her hands up, conceding the point. “Seriously, though, Annie. It’s really great that you two are finally together. We’re really happy for you.”

“Ah, here we go,” Annaïs says, promptly grabbing the paper napkins. It’s good timing, too; not even a second later, Marianne starts to sniffle.

It’s a fortunate thing literally everyone at the table already knew that was gonna happen. 

 


End file.
